THE minute former Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced Australia would accept extra refugees from Syria, Catholic bishops, priests, parishes and individuals started raising their hands to say “We’ll help”. Archbishop Mark Coleridge was among the first, on behalf of the people of Brisbane archdiocese. By the time Archbishop Coleridge announced last weekend the archdiocese would aim to welcome at least ... Read More »
AUSTRALIA’S largest Catholic volunteer organisation has vowed to help the nation’s increased intake of persecuted Syrians find a safe haven in their newfound home. The St Vincent de Paul Society National Council of Australia welcomed the recent government’s decision to accept a further 12,000 refugees from Syria, confirmed yesterday. The society’s chief executive Dr John Falzon said ... Read More »
By Paul Dobbyn BRISBANE refugee rights activist Freddie Steen described an Australian Government agreement with Cambodia to resettle asylum seekers there as “people trafficking”. “What else can you call it?” the former volunteer at Woolloongabba’s Mercy Family Services Romero Centre said. “Our government is paying another country to take people we don’t want – basically using humans as a commodity. ... Read More »
By Paul Dobbyn SRI Lankan asylum seekers playing in soccer and cricket teams around Brisbane have witnessed to the power of sport to build bridges with the wider community. Several young men belonging to the Tigers Eleven Soccer Club and the Tamil junior cricket team told their stories at the Brisbane launch of the Australian bishops’ 2014/2015 Social Justice Statement, ... Read More »
SENIOR students from two of Brisbane archdiocese’s schools are sharing their immersion experiences in a trial, which looks set to spread further afield. The students from St Patrick’s College, Shorncliffe, and Assisi College, Coomera, are being trained to give talks to local parishes through a new initiative of Catholic Mission’s Brisbane office. Brisbane archdiocese’s Catholic Mission director David McGovern said ... Read More »
ADDRESSING Mary as “mother of refugees”, Pope Francis offered prayers for the millions of people in the world forced to flee their homelands, and he asked Catholics to reach out to them with assistance and a real welcome. “Remember, Jesus was a refugee; he and Mary and Joseph had to go to Egypt to save his life,” the Pope said ... Read More »
POPE Francis would be appalled at the Australian Government’s treatment of asylum seekers, Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge said in a TV interview on Monday night. Archbishop Coleridge said in an interview on ABC TV’s Four Corners program that the Holy Father would be “appalled” if he visited Manus Island, where asylum seekers were held under a policy he described as “cruel ... Read More »
By Peter Bugden THE scarred face of a man he met in the Curtin Immigration Detention Centre, in Western Australia, is one Bishop Christopher Saunders will never forget. The image of that man came back to Bishop Saunders on the day (May 8) the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference issued a statement calling for the end of the “institutionalised cruelty” of ... Read More »
By Peter Bugden THE Australian Catholic bishops have a clear message for the Federal Government and for the broader community, on asylum-seeker policy – “Enough of this institutionalised cruelty”. That was the plea made in a May 8 statement from the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference plenary meeting in Sydney. The bishops, making an “urgent plea for a respect for the ... Read More »
The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You
